The Architect
by Demento56
Summary: Dissatisfied with her new world order, The Architect begins to plot against the new world she created with the assistance of Kronos. This is the sequel to Percy Jackson: Guardian of Tartarus. Mostly AU and OC's, but it's still PJO, don't worry. Not discontinued!
1. Prologue

The Architect

Chapter the First

**AN: Hello, my adoring fans! Yes, I know I said I wouldn't be writing another story again for a while, but I got bored one day and decided to start another story. I remember that on chapter one or two of my first story, someone told me that the whole "Guardian of Tartarus" thing was overdone, so this is a story in and of itself, but it's like TLH: it mingles with the other story. Anyways, roll the- story, I guess.**

**Third Person Limited: The Architect**

Back when such things had still mattered to her, people called her Annabeth. Her last name was a distant memory to her, but she had an impression of something like Mace or Kase. Back when such things had still mattered to her, she had had companions. She faintly remembered a satyr named Grover, a boy named Nico, and a girl named Thalia. Their faces were no longer present in her mind, but she no longer cared. There was still one, though. She had profound memories of the one person who had ever really meant anything to her. Then, just five years after she had met him, he gave up mortality. He had ascended to Mount Olympus without her, or any of their companions, and then he had been banished to Tartarus so he could guard the one she now served. In neither position could she be with him as she wished, andshe had become bitter. Bitter at him, and at the gods who had given him immortality. In secret, she had arranged her revenge with the one she now served. It was ridiculously simply. They all trusted her implicitly, believed her when she said she had a stone in her shoe, walked away as she made her deal with the Lord. For nearly three months, she had fought alongside the only one who mattered to her. But it hadn't mattered to her. She had only fought in order to feed information to the Lord and disinformation to the half-bloods. She led them to a mine, gold tinted with oricalcum. A potent combination for any immortal, but the only one who had ever really mattered to her was still young- only a godling, really- and had no idea how to channel the power of metals. The Lord was ancient, older than the gods of Greek, and he was a grizzled veteran, able to raze a mountain with the power from even a single golden drachma. The Lord had crushed the godling in less than a minute of combat, and then, in the godling's final moments, she had exacted her final revenge. She made sure that the last thought in his mind was the identity of the one he had trusted so intimately, respected, even loved, so deeply. She had spoken to him, lying about her reasons for her betrayal. She had spoken of having her ambition fulfilled, of being the Architect of the new Order- rather, the new Chaos. She had wanted to hurt him, and she did. And then, miraculously, he was gone, absorbed into the Lord. Afterwards, the half-bloods who were still alive were easily killed, and the gods fell as easily, with each felled adding to the strength of the Lord. Then he had razed the entire world and created, as he had promised, a blank canvas of the earth and the heavens for his Architect. For millennia, she had been content with immortality, and with redesigning the human race. Eventually, as the years dragged on, her happiness had become tainted with sadness and loneliness. In an attempt to amuse herself, she had crunched some numbers, and began creating flukes in humans, nothing serious, just an overactive pituitary gland here, an echo of a sixth sense there, little things that would make them different. Sometimes, depending on her mood, she would either make the change benevolent or malicious. In time, however, as her contentment faded, she began to formulate a plan. It was just harmless pondering at first, just something to keep her mind occupied, but eventually, it evolved into a scheme, an intricate and elaborate scheme. We join The Architect, as she is known now, in midday, when she is able to think most freely. She decides that today will be the day she begins her grand plan. She is immortal, as are those who will benefit from the completion of her plan, and so time means little to her. Today, she begins the first phase of her plan. She casts the world around to find a compatible mother, one who is not too far along in her pregnancy, so that the changes in the baby would have time to fully manifest themselves. She does not choose a mother from a well off situation, but rather one who will force the unborn child to fight simply to cling to life. She does not need a hero who is weak and afraid of danger, rather, she needs one who has lived on the knife's edge between life and death. She finds a suitable mother in China, and she begins to shape the child. She reaches deep, and begins to tamper with the child's genes. She makes it so that the child will be stronger and more intelligent than normal, and she blesses the child- if such a term can be used in reference to a servant of the one she serves- with an echo of her own power. It is only the tiniest bit, but if he learns to use it, it will become his greatest weapon. Since he has been touched by the power of an immortal, he is, in effect, the first demigod since the fall of Olympus several millennia ago. Over the next few months, she does the same thing to two other children- a boy and a girl, both from America. She also takes this opportunity to visit the underworld- namely, the River Styx's inner bank. She grabs a handful of clay, and leaves. Once she is returned to her haven on what used to be Olympus, she begins to fashion the clay. She still has a vague recollection of what her companion Grover looked like, and she fashioned the clay into a rough likeness of the dead satyr. It took her a little over an hour before she was ready to breathe life into the clay figure, which by this time had become more physically attractive than any satyr ever had been. Since the children were just being born at this time, she made the satyr young, but not too young- after all, they mature at one third of the human rate. She allowed the children and the satyr twelve years, by which time the satyr had attained the age of twenty. She decided that the satyr would seek out the children and bring them to a secure location, far from Mount Tamalpais, which had become the throne of the Lord. She decided then, with a private smile at a private joke, that there was a perfect place, well-hidden and well-defended, in New York. On the twelfth birthday of the American girl, she sent each of her chosen a sign- to make sure they couldn't deny the reality of their situation. Of the three, she believed the American girl would be hardest to convince- she had been raised as a fervent, devout Catholic. The American boy was just barely Protestant, and the Chinese boy already subscribed to many superstitions from his upbringing in rural China. To each of them, she sent the same, unmistakable sign: she herself appeared before them. She spoke to them of what they were, and of what was still to come. The Chinese boy, as she had expected, was the easiest to convince. However, the other two children came as a surprise to her. The girl was actually a closet disbeliever, while the boy was a closet devout. The girl revealed that she always thought there had to be something more than the God she had been raised to believe in, and the boy that he had always thought there was nothing less. In fact, the Architect was almost certain that the boy had tried to brain her with one of the newspapers he was delivering as she left.

**And on that note, Chapter One is over! Reviews please! Anything annoy you? Did I keep spelling something wrong? Is one of the characters bugging you? Should I stop calling Annabeth "the Architect"? If it's the last one, you're out of luck! XD Just kidding!**

**Demento56**


	2. Beginnings

Lee Wong was, as usual, people watching and getting in a workout at the same time. Today, he was jogging along the water's edge, near Lake St. Clair. It must be said that he was being rather inattentive, as he had his headphones in both ears and his mind was… occupied. Truthfully, he was thinking about a visit he had had three days ago.

_Flashback_

Lee had been doing bicep curls in his apartment and was in the middle of a set with his 10 pound warm-up dumbbells when he dropped them both, narrowly missing his feet. The reason for his action was not shock, but rather a state of instant readiness. The dumbbells were heavy and awkward, so he discarded them. Again, this action was not normal, and there was a perfectly good reason for it, this time being the slightly ethereal woman who had- there was no other word for it- melted through the wall of his 6th floor apartment. He had sprung up from the couch against the wall of his apartment and was balanced on the balls of his feet, right hand formed into a loose knife, left loose and prepared for action. With not so much as a hint of preamble, the woman chuckled and sat down on his couch. With a hint of amusement in her voice, she spoke in a voice that reminded Lee of a river trickling over stones. "Very good. Always ready for action, even in inexplicable circumstances. You will make a fine leader someday. Come now, sit."

Lee was stunned for a moment, and then he found his voice. "Who are you, and how did you get into my apartment? More importantly, how do you think you can just waltz in to MY home and tell ME to sit?" When he spoke, it was with undisguised anger, and she raised an eyebrow at his questions. For a moment, he was apprehensive, suddenly afraid to disappoint this woman. Fear was not a new feeling for him, nor was it unwelcome. It lent him a burst of adrenaline, a feeling he relished, and he quickly shook off the fear.

Again came that smile, like the sun bursting through a layer of clouds. "Good, child. It is true; you have no reason to know of me. Long ago, I designed this world from the ashes of the last, and I recreated the human race in a way much improved from the last. I am the Architect, and you are the first of my Heroes. Now, you must become greater than you have ever been before, and overthrow this order of things. This world is dominated by the Titan Kronos, and he must be destroyed at all costs."

For a moment, Lee was tempted to believe that this was all some sort of massive practical joke, perhaps pulled off by one of his many ex-co-workers from the odd jobs that he took, but he discarded that theory. This was too elaborate, even for the most dedicated of his friends. Something about this woman made even Lee, renowned among his friends for his cynicism, believe her, but even so, there were two questions he felt obliged to pose. "Two things. One, why me? And two, I can't do this on my own, no matter how 'improved' I am."

The Architect nodded slowly, as if in approval. "You will not be alone in your quest. You will meet with two others like yourself. You will know them when you see them; their names to you will be Core and Rage. You will be Spearhead, the leader of the next generation. However, your names alone will not be all that you have to know each other by. Extend your right arm. I'm afraid this will hurt."

Without a moment's hesitation, Lee extended his arm. "Pain does not matter to me, and an oath taken painlessly is an oath taken carelessly."

That was the last thing he remembered before his world exploded into a brilliant shade of red, and then faded out to black.

_Flashback End_

After he had woken up, he saw that the Architect was gone. Immediately, he had gone into the bathroom and rolled up his right sleeve. He saw there a coiling black tattoo of a flame, etched into the skin of his upper arm as if it were burned into it. Then again, he mused, it could well have been.

Lee crashed into an obstruction and staggered back two steps before he was able to reconcile himself with any semblance of readiness. His eyes darted around, searching for the obstacle, but it took him a moment to realize that the collision was just a collision and look down. When he finally did, his eyes met a pair of the most brilliantly blue eyes he had ever seen. His entire reaction took him about a second, in which time the owner of the eyes had just about managed to find her voice.

"What do you think you're doing? You need to watch where you're going, for God's sake!"

Lee flinched momentarily at the shrill voice before recovering quickly, if not gracefully. "I'm sorry! I- I don't know what happened, I must have just spaced out for a minute." He took in the coffee cup dashed against the pavement and the white shirt, now ruined by a splash of what was, by the smell of it, strong black coffee. "I'll get you a new coffee, and a new shirt-"

He was interrupted by her laugh, a melodious sound that was unique in his experience. "Calm down! I'm sorry I snapped at you like that, I'm just a little frazzled. I spent the last twelve hours in a grubby bus coming from Manhattan. I've never left New York before and I've just never been knocked over like that before, so…" Her voice trailed off.

This time it was his laugh ringing out, a rich baritone sound. He extended his arm and pulled her up off the pavement, than spoke. "Come on, there's a Starbucks around the corner, I'll get you another coffee and you can tell me all about yourself."

"… so I decided to come to Detroit on my own, because U of M is my dream school, but my family didn't want to come with me." They had sat at a corner table through an hour- hadn't felt like it- two cups of coffee- two sugars and a cream in each- and Lexi's- the girl's- life story. Lee felt like she was holding something back, and that there was something about her that seemed familiar that he couldn't quite put his finger on. "So what about you then, Lee? What's your story?"

Lee was mildly surprised at this new turn of events, having never been asked about himself before. "I'm a pretty boring person, no story really. Came to America when I was six with my parents, they both did in a car crash before I turned seven, and I ran around from the orphanage at thirteen. Found a few odd jobs, and I've been hopping between jobs ever since."

She looked shocked at his story, and there was a worried cast to her eyes. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I had no idea. That must have been really hard on you!"

Something about her voice made him think she was sincere, and he had dedicated the last four years of his life to learning how to tell if people were being honest with him. For a moment, he even felt a bit guilty about giving her a slightly-less-than-true account, but he figured that the sequence he had given wasn't too far off the mark. "It wasn't so bad, they'd leave me on my own a lot while we lived in China, so I was used to fending for myself." Again, there was that twinge of guilt, which hadn't given him the slightest worry the first time it had shown up. This time though, it had brought with it a slight twinge of apprehension. He had lied all throughout his lifetime with never a moment's doubt, so why was he suddenly so unsure of himself now?

"No plans or dreams then? Nothing further in life than odd jobs for Lee Wong?" Something about the way she spoke convinced Lee, and he was suddenly surer of one thing than he had been of anything else in his life.

"No grand ambitions for Lee Wong, no. But you know, there may just be something great in store for Spearhead." As he spoke, he pushed up his right sleeve and revealed the flame coiled around his arm.

She gasped and glanced around furtively, as if they were discussing defense secrets. "Hello, Core. I had been thinking there was something familiar about you, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Now then, if you don't mind my asking, where's your tattoo?"

She looked around guiltily one last time and rolled up her own right sleeve. "It's in the same spot as yours, but it's a different design." As she spoke, her sleeve travelled up her arm, revealing a tattoo of a flowering vine so realistic that it looked like it had grown there in monochrome.

Lee nodded. "Any idea who Rage would be then?"

Lexi shook her head. "She said we would all meet today, so I guess we'll run into him sooner or later."

Lee nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair, running his eyes over his companion. Her face was clear and guileless. She was slightly shorter than Lee himself, though that was nothing new for Lee, who stood at a full 6'2 when he wasn't slouching. He estimated her height at just about 6 feet, possibly a bit less. She looked delicate, but he guessed there was more to her than she appeared, and from the story she told, he assumed there was a core of steel hidden somewhere beneath that delicate looking exterior.

For some reason though, he kept finding himself drawn back to her brilliant blue eyes. She had quite a pretty face, he reflected, between the straight blond hair, and the electrifying blue eyes. He frowned. It wouldn't do to have something as useless as emotion distracting him from his mission.

Lexi LaClear felt her heart sink as she realized something had changed in her new friend's demeanor. She had been so close to breaking the ice with this- there was no other word for it- gorgeous new fellow. His short black hair reminded her of somebody she'd known once, and his jogging clothes were clinging to his frame, offering her a good look at the athletic build hidden underneath them. All of that was secondary though, to his eyes. She wasn't much with words, but even she could put together the words to describe them. They were the warmest brown she had ever seen, and just seeing them made her feel something she never had before. Just as she was about to ask him about his sudden change in attitude, a server came around to their table.

"Hey guys, anything else I can get you?" He spoke in the warm, cheery voice that characterized pharmacy commercials, but there was no doubt as to his purpose. They had been sitting at a table for almost an hour and a half now, and hadn't bought anything more than the two cups of coffee. He was here to either persuade them to buy something more or to chase them out of the store. As she looked up at him, she took in his messy black hair and mismatched eyes. His right eye was blue, while his left was brown. The combination give him a slightly manic look and more than moderately attractive look, but the way he carried himself suggested that he was well aware of that fact. She couldn't be sure, but she estimated his height at maybe 6' 1", a little shorter than Lee was.

As she looked at him though, something seemed to resonate inside her. Judging by his shifting weight, he felt something as well. Before she could open her mouth, though, Lee spoke. "Hello, Rage. Care to join us for a spot of coffee? My treat?"

Lexi heard a sharp intake of breath. "How do you know that name?"

"More importantly now, care to join us for a cup on me?"

"Are you Core, then?"

"Spearhead, or so I'm told. Most people just call me Lee."

Rage's eyes narrowed. He seemed dissatisfied with Lee's explanation. "Most people, hmm? They call me Derrick. What do the rest of the people call you, then?"

Lee half-smiled and tilted his head at Lexi. "I'd never repeat such language in front of a lady, who is, by the way, is looking to introduce herself to you."

Lexi was caught off guard by Lee's statement, though she had in fact been searching for an opportunity to get a word in edgewise. "I'm Core. Most people call me Lexi, but the rest call me Alexis. Don't."

Derrick, who seemed fond of facial expressions, raised his eyebrows and sat down. "If you say so. Now then, who's gonna be in charge here?"

Lexi was surprised that Derrick couldn't tell from their names. "Well it's obvious, isn't it? I mean, with a name like Spearhead…" She let her voice trail away as both of her new friends protested.

Lee spoke first, Derrick allowing him to overwhelm his voice. "I'm not taking charge if I don't have to. She never said who would be in charge, just that we should head to a certain address."

"I'm not sure I'm a fan of this fellow being in charge anyways. Just because he has the name doesn't mean he's in charge," Derrick agreed.

Lee sighed. "Right. Well, we're not getting anywhere as long as we sit here having a lovely little chat. Come on, we'll head over to the dojo she told us about."

"Dojo?" Derrick and Lexi answered in unison, and then laughed. Lexi motioned for Derrick to speak. "She didn't tell us about any dojo."

Lee shrugged. "Whatever. I've been there before, so I guess I'll take the lead for now."

They stood before the doors of an abandoned looking building, taking in the heavy graffiti covering the cinderblock walls and the green painted steel door. Lexi spoke first, in a dubious tone. "Are you sure this is the place? And more importantly, why have you been in this place before?"

Lee replied in an offhand tone. "Hiding from gang members after a few poorly considered instances of vigilante justice." He paused. "And Derrick, if you don't believe me, I can show you the scars to prove it. On top of that, I can tell you what caused each and every one of them."

Derrick did a double take, wondering how Lee had known he doubted the story. The next moment, he shrugged it off as a lucky guess, and moved forward to open the door. Before he could, though, Lee had preempted him and was already striding in.

As his foot hit the varnished wooden floor, the lights came on, several times brighter than they should have been. As bright as the lights were, Lee barely paused for a moment before walking to the exact center of the dojo floor.

The second he stopped moving, two monsters appeared. There was no other word for them. The first was a massive millipede-like creature that stood upright, with jagged mandibles and considerably fewer appendages. The next was much smaller, possibly 5' 6" to the first creature's 8 feet, but was no less terrifying because of it. It was what appeared to have been human at one point, several hundred years ago. Now, standing in the dojo, it was a mass of rotting skin and muscles, barely attached to a semblance of a skeletal structure by threads of tissue.

Lee had no doubt that if he could get rid of one, his task would be much easier. After all, he could tell that neither Lexi nor Derrick had any sort of real training, so this would be down to his abilities and his abilities only. Despite the terrifying image he faced, Lee remained completely calm as he gestured to the weapons racks lining the walls of the dojo. "Lexi, Derrick, find some weapons and arm yourselves. You'll have to keep trying until you find ones that fit you, and when you do, don't take a hand. You'll be more likely to hit me than whatever I'm fighting at the time."

Interestingly enough, Derrick had no compunction about letting Lee take charge in this situation, and Lexi was the one who protested this time. "Are you crazy? Those things could tear you apart! We can't just let you fight these things alone!" She was shouting, nearly hysterical from the sheer terror of it all, but still tried to force him to accept her help.

Lee smiled, but made no move to allow her to help him. "Lexi, I promise you, I have no intention of being torn apart, and the best thing you can do right now is find your weapon." After he finished speaking, he slipped into a ready stance and Lexi reluctantly did as he said.

As soon as she and Derrick had started to look for their weapons, the monsters, who had been standing eerily still up until then, moved at an alarming pace. Lee only smiled. The millipede reached him first and swiped clumsily with a clawed hand. Lee ducked under the attack easily and moved to engage the zombie-thing. With a single straight-armed strike to the thing's face, he separated its head from its neck, whereupon the body ceased to be a threat, preoccupied as it was reacquainting itself with the rules of death. His interaction with the zombie took him just under two seconds, in which time the millipede had managed to turn itself around and swipe at him again. This time, instead of ducking under the blow as he had before, he put to use the same inhuman strength as before and did a front flip over all eight feet of the creature. At the apex of his leap, he changed trajectory ever so slightly and put to use his momentum with a crushing axe kick to the base of the creature's head. Such a blow should have felled any normal opponent; however, he had underestimated the toughness of the exoskeleton and succeeded only in flipping himself back over at the ground.

Considering the rapidly approaching hardwood floor, Lee decided that he had best execute the sequence of events that he had been planning ever since he first saw the monster. He somersaulted to break his fall and ended up on his feet. He crouched low and formed a claw with the first three fingers of his left hand and made a slashing motion. If anybody had been observing, they would have noticed a slight shimmer around his fingers before he swiped, and a metallic energy forming claws in sync with the motion of his hand. As he made the motion, he shouted wordlessly, loudly enough to distract Derrick and Lexi, who were desperately searching for their weapons among a forest of nasty, sharp, and pointy things that all seemed to be attached to the racks that they rested on. As they looked over, Lee's technique spilt three long gashes in the armor the beast had been born with, and its guts spilled out.

Lexi and Derrick could only stand and gape in amazement as Lee straightened up and kicked the now deceased millipede off of his foot, where it had fallen. He turned to them and saw their ridiculous expressions. "What? She told me we'd all find our weapons here, and that only you two would only get solid ones. Mine would awaken as soon as I needed them to."

Once again making an entrance, The Architect materialized in the middle of the three friends. "Correct." Looking around, she noticed that none of them were surprised by her entrance and frowned. "You aren't surprised?"

Lexi shrugged and spoke for the group. "You've done it at least twice to everybody by now, so we're all used to it by now."

The Architect sighed, knowing that she would have to try harder in future. Setting the matter aside for now, she began to speak, explaining their quest and their abilities.

**Hey guys, it's me again! Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Kwanzaa and Saturnalia and whatever other celebrations happen to be going on! Now that my greeting, which allows for both my laziness and niceness to be satisfied, I'll get down to business. This chapter isn't over yet, but I'm writing this AN halfway through. By the time I'm through with this chap, I plan on it pretty much doubling my word count on this site. Just remember, nothing's discontinued! Also, I will just say now that this story will be very little PJO, very much original me, and very heavily borrowing from the manga Toriko, and possibly a little bit from Naruto.**

Lee and Derrick sat down heavily on the ground, joining Lexi, who had been there for some time. "So." Lee couldn't think of anything more to say.

"Demons," Derrick agreed. One of the many things The Architect had shared with them was that in their tattoos were sealed minor demons that she had imbued with a vital ability- the ability to evolve. In stressful situations, the demons would cause adaptations to their hosts that would allow them to flourish.

Not one to be left out of this one-word-at-a-time discussion, Lexi joined in with, "Enhancements." Again, The Architect had shared with them a secret, this time the key to Lee's performance during his battle. She had enhanced all their strengths to slightly superhuman levels, as well as allowing them a fragment of her own strength, which Lee had called forth with his Three Claw attack.

They sat in silence for some time. Finally, Lee broke the silence. "Where to now? We've got the choices of the Keys of Power or the Soulbound Tools."

Lexi looked up in surprise at the sound of his voice. "Why are you asking us? You heard her as well as we did, you're the leader." Indeed, the question of leadership had finally been settled, as clear as it might have been when one of the members of the team was called Spearhead.

Lee grimaced, uncomfortable with the idea of being in the position of leadership. "Well personally, I feel like the Soulbound Tools would help us to find the Keys of Power, so I think we ought to head for those first. The question is now, which one of the tools do we head for?"

Lexi and Derrick leaned back, deep in thought. Finally, Derrick was the one to speak up. "Let's try and find the Soulbound Weapon first. I figure no matter who binds that one, it'll be useful to us."

Seeing Lexi's nod of agreement, Lee rose to his feet and rolled his shoulders. "All right then, time to head for Florida." Another of the secrets The Architect had bestowed upon them was the location of the three Soulbound Tools, wondrous things that could be stored away and recalled with nothing but a thought, but that would only accept certain people as their wielders. As their tattoos sealed their demons, they would also serve to store their respective Tools.

A day and a half later, at around 6:00 PM, Lee stopped walking. The group had been going south at a steady pace since they had decided to seek out the Soulbound Weapon. He spoke now, as they were coming alongside a lightly wooded area. "Alright guys, let's make camp and start a fire going, over in the woods there."

With not so much as a murmur of dissent, his companions turned towards the small copse to set up their tents. As the two other Heroes began the humble task of accommodations for the night, Lee headed around the edge of the copse for firewood, and to test out a new technique he'd been thinking about. Finding a suitable tree, about three feet around, he gripped a branch at shoulder height with his left hand and formed his right into a much tighter knife than the one he had made while he faced The Architect for the first time. With a shout of "Knife," he swung his arm around, striking the branch and cleanly severing it. Instinctively, he shook his hand before realizing that his hand was fine. He held up his hand to examine it and could only conclude that his new attack had been successful.

Next, it was time to test just how powerful the Knife was. He backed up a step and bent his knees slightly. Aiming for a point slightly more than a foot above the base of the tree, he shouted "Knife" again as he swung his arm. He met practically no resistance from the trunk, and when he looked at the spot he had slashed, he saw a gash in the tree just about seven inches deep. A sudden noise alerted him to the flaw in his plan, and he barely dodged to the side in time to evade the falling tree.

The noise of the tree crashing through the foliage, snapping branches off of other trees in the process and startling what seemed to be every forest animal within a three mile radius, quickly brought Lexi and Derrick running. They were taken aback for a moment by the fallen tree, and Lee, who was still facing the tree, standing a few feet away, panting lightly. Lexi was the first to find her voice. "What happened?"

Lee grinned tiredly. "Firewood." He paused a moment, teasing them, before giving them the real answer. "I was testing out a new attack I'd been thinking about and I needed to see how powerful it was before I could use it in a real fight… I think I can use it, how about you two?"

Derrick shook his head slowly. "Two things. One: it doesn't look like you'll be able to use it many times, by the looks of you right now. Two: Why, oh why, do you get ALL the cool toys?" Though the words themselves were abrasive, the tone was joking and Derrick grinned to take the edge off.

Lexi sighed at the antics of her companions, but Lee replied before she could stop the playful argument. "What, this? I get less tired out after climbing half a flight of stairs! I could do that all day. And the reason I get all the cool stuff is because you with a weapon, I can already tell, would be about as useful as a soup knife."

Derrick's brow clouded as he tried to figure that one out. It must be said that Derrick, while strong, and mostly selflessly motivated, was not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Before he could figure out the insult, Lexi took her chance and intervened. "Guys, come on! We're supposed to be making camp, not getting into a fight! Lee, do you think you can chop that thing up with your new trick?"

Lee nodded and bent slightly at the knees as Lexi and Derrick turned to face the tree as well, eager to see the new technique. With a shout of "Knife," and an arm movement that was too swift to follow, Lee cut the trunk into quarters lengthwise, then into easily manageable chunks each about two feet long. After his task was done, Lee exhaled heavily and fell on his rear. After he noticed Lexi's concerned look- Derrick had already picked up a few lengths of firewood and was headed back to the camp- he grinned and decided to reassure her. With a wave of his hand, he said, "Just give me a second to catch my breath and I'll be fine. Knife is a pretty energy-heavy technique, and I had to do it about ten times to finish that tree off."

Lexi's look of concern didn't decrease in intensity, though, and Lee realized that she wasn't worried about his current state. Mentally, he shrugged and remembered that he had demonstrated his impressive stamina several times over the last day and a half.

Lexi shook her head and thought for a moment before she spoke. "I'm worried about Derrick. He seems… different than us. He's angrier and more prideful."

Lee nodded slowly. He had noticed Derrick's boisterous behavior already, and neither he nor Lexi were forgetting Derrick's past assertation that Lee wasn't their leader. "I know, and I'm worried about him too. In any case, though, we can't do anything until he gives us a reason to. If he abandons us, he abandons us and we'll just have to adapt."

Just as Lexi was about to respond, Derrick came within shouting distance of them. "Hey! Are you two planning to help me out, or are you going to flirt the day away?" Lexi blushed lightly, a fact that was not lost on Lee, but that he attributed to embarrassment. Derrick's words were light-hearted, but they carried a subtle hint of anger that he doubted Lexi would've noticed.

Lee was, however, underestimating Lexi's powers of observation. She felt her anger rising at Derrick's possessiveness, and decided to respond before Lee could. "Yeah Derrick, I think we're just going to flirt till dawn."

Derrick was, at this point, bending over to pick up another double armful of logs and Lee was getting up to mirror his action, but Lexi's comment froze Derrick so quickly that Lee's head almost collided with his. It was certainly a close-run thing in any case, but they didn't escape collision a second time as Derrick's head snapped up quickly enough to give him whiplash. After they both took a moment to grab their heads at the point of impact and howl in pain, Lee smirked mentally and Derrick was reduced to incoherent spluttering. Lexi took advantage of their momentary distraction to flip her long hair gracefully and take up her own load of logs. As she left, both of the young men were staring after her, but for very different reasons. While Derrick's eyes were wide open and his mouth was agape, and he stared after Lexi as if she had grown two extra heads, Lee's gaze was focused a bit lower and he wore an appreciative smirk. Shaking his head, Lee returned to the task at hand.

As Lee held up the body of a rabbit that had three distinct puncture marks in its gut, he shouted in triumph. "HAHA! I knew it! I knew it all along!"

Derrick, standing a few paces behind Lee, snorted derisively. "As if you could've figured out you could throw your Claw attack without my help."

Lee felt a soft barb hidden in Derrick's statement and allowed himself to be drawn into a friendly argument. "You call standing a few steps behind me and making sarcastic comments helping? I must not have the hang of this language yet, because in China, we call that a hindrance."

Derrick huffed and turned his head to the side. "Admit it already, you would've never even thought about throwing your Claw without my commentary."

Just as Lee was ready to respond, Lexi appeared on the edge of their campfire's glow with her hands on her hips. She called out playfully, "Boys, if you can't stop arguing, I'll come out there and make you. Now bring me the rabbit like a good pair of boys."

They both shuddered at the implications of her statement- they'd experienced her wrath before and were in no hurry to do so again. Quickly, they brought the rabbit's body to the campfire, where a savory stew was simmering. They hadn't been planning on having an addition of meat to the meal, but it made for a pleasant surprise. Until now, they had only had one success in hunting, two days ago with a clumsy snare that Lee had set. He had taken up hunting as a hobby of sorts, because they had been gone for four days at that point and he was already beginning to worry about the state of their food supplies. He would not hesitate to steal if the alternative was going hungry, but he would prefer not to resort to such… drastic measures. So far, they had managed to augment their food supplies with a few wild herbs, but not much else.

Soon enough, the stew was ready, as was the excellent loaf of what Lee called traveler's bread. It was a simple mix of flour, water and salt, baked in the coals of the fire. It cooked quickly, and after the ash was brushed off, a lovely golden crust was revealed underneath. The bread itself tore with just a light application of force and was a perfect companion to Lexi's stew.

Lexi's cooking skills had come as a surprise to all three of the companions. It had happened on the second evening of their journey, just as Lee was about to botch a perfectly good stew by adding too much salt. Lexi had grabbed his wrist and asked him whether it wouldn't be better to add some different seasoning. Intrigued by her reasoning, Lee had told Lexi to take over the stew, and had been pleasantly surprised by the end result. The only problem was with the first rabbit they had caught, which ended up rather messy. Lexi had suddenly become squeamish, so Lee took pity on her and finished off the stew, which he managed to not completely ruin, but that was nowhere near Lexi's standards. Ever since then, though, she had continued to improve and was now probably competent enough to take over in a three or four star restaurant.

There was never much talk around the campfire as they ate dinner, simply because Lee and Derrick were too busy stuffing their faces and Lexi, while she enjoyed her own craft to a lesser degree, was primarily watching with pride as Lee and Derrick demonstrated, in the most effective way possible, their appreciation of her work. After dinner, though, the group sat around the fire for some time, sometimes talking animatedly, sometimes just sitting in a companionable silence. Today, it was the latter until Lee broke the silence. "Derrick, if you want to take first watch, I'll take last and that'll leave Lexi with the midnight shift?"

Derrick nodded, and Lexi retreated to her tent as Lee ducked into his. Derrick, armed with a Ka-Bar knife Lee had brought with him, sat a few yards from the burning-down fire and resigned himself to four hours in the cold.

After Derrick woke Lexi and handed her the knife, she took his place and waited half an hour to be sure he was really asleep. When she was sure he was well and truly asleep, she moved over to Lee's tent to wake him. That he was not surprised by her waking him showed how adept he was at reading body language. During dinner, he had realized that she wanted to talk to him, and he was determined to oblige her. As skilled as Lee was, he couldn't divine the reason as to why she wished to talk to him, so he was content to allow her to speak first. Well, that's not quite right. He thought he knew why, but he was certain that he must be wrong, simply because it was it was something nobody had ever shown him before.

As they reached the lookout spot, Lexi and Lee both sat down, six inches away from each other. Though she was the progenitor of the conversation, Lexi showed no great eagerness to speak, instead shifting uncomfortably. Lee was not bothered though, being well versed in patience. Finally, Lexi seemed to steel her nerves and grabbed Lee's hand in her own before beginning to speak. "Lee… What is it about you that makes me feel so strange every time I'm around you? Whenever I see you, I feel like I'm safe, almost like I know that nothing will happen to me as long as you're here. I've never felt like this before, Lee, and to be honest, it scares me a little bit, because of how volatile Derrick can be and how possessive he can be."

Lee was unsure how to respond to her declaration of affection, mainly because it was confirmation that he'd been right all along, and it was still something that had never happened to him before. All his life, he had been on his own, and now he was faced with something he thought would never happen to him. In his Detroit apartment, he'd been living day-to-day with minimal advance planning, and before that… well, he tried not to think about where he'd been before that. Consequently, he stared up into the sky for a long while, gathering his thoughts before he answered. The moon was full tonight, the sky was clear, and the midsummer night's sky was stunning and almost cloudless, save for a thin curtain over the moon. The thought brought to mind a way to begin his answer, and around that beginning, he created his own speech.

"Shall I compare thee to a midsummer night? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. What it is about me that makes you feel like that… I don't know what it is, but maybe it's just because that's the way I am. I don't know what I've done to deserve someone as beautiful and as wonderful as you, but you said just what I feel about you. To the last drop of blood in my veins, I promise you that nothing bad will happen to you so long as I am able to protect you. But… Lexi, I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you. I… I'm not a safe person to be around. Everyone who gets close to me… My parents were killed when I was two by some gang members who were robbing our house. After that, it was just me, my older brother, and an uncle who took us in. Eventually, he became like my father, and we were just a happy family until a few months after I turned six. It was another robbery, and people tell me that I was only two and there was no way I could have remembered what happened that night, but… I know what I saw. It was those same two people who killed my parents, robbing my uncle. I tried to stop him from going out, but I was only six and he was a big guy. I didn't find out what happened until the next morning, but he didn't come back that night, that I was sure of. So then it was just me and my brother, aged six and nine. We were living rough for a long time on the streets and we ended up stealing and begging just to survive. And then, it happened again. It was that same gang. My brother was begging from the leader of the gang, and he just made a motion with his hand and one of his men pulled a gun and shot my brother in the stomach, right in front of me. I sat there, holding my brother while he died, and at that moment, I swore to dedicate my life to the best causes I could. I lost everyone close to me, and I don't know if I can take it one more time."

After Lee's speech, he hid his face in his hands and Lexi brought her hand up to her mouth. She was shocked by his story and she didn't know how to react. In the end, she put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him close to her.

They sat like that until the sun extended the first golden ray of light across the sky.

**Hey guys! I hope you like this chapter, because it was the first one I've written this well, and I feel like it's my best one yet. I won't say much here because there isn't much to say. Happy Holidays, and reviews if you please!**

**Words in this chapter: 6740**

**Words in both AN's: 157**

**6740-157=6583 words in story this chapter**

**Words in both stories so far: 9445**

**New word count: 16185**

**Power consumption: **

**Three Claw- 20**

**Knife- 50**

**Power totals: **

**Lee- 2500**

**Lexi- Dormant**

**Derrick- Dormant**


	3. The Dystopia

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of this except the stuff I pull out of my head.**

**A/N: What's this? I'm actually posting another chapter? It's a winter solstice miracle! I've been sitting on this stuff for a long while and added very little to it since August, so I figured I'd hit you all with another chapter the length of the previous one (~5500 words in this one). Cheers!**

As the first rays of sunlight worked their way around the curve of the earth, Lee found his way out of his pit of despair and looked up. As he turned his head to the lovely redhead sitting beside him, he realized she was asleep, and probably had been for some time. He smiled lightly, just a tugging at the edges of his lips, and gently shook her awake. "Come on, Lexi, it's time to go back to your tent."

She shifted, still half-asleep, and murmured, "Five more minutes."

Lee chuckled silently and stood up, picking her up bridal-style. Ignoring her whimper of protest, he enjoyed the sensation of her curling into his chest for a moment before he started to walk towards the three tents. He was stumped for a moment by the zippered flap of her tent, but managed to overcome the challenge by kneeling and transferring her momentarily to his knee. He knee-walked into her tent and laid her on her bedroll. He crawled backwards, out of her tent, and returned to the guard position just in time to hear Derrick coming out of his tent.

Lee turned to look over the campfire and watched Derrick stumble to the campfire, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Any coffee left?"

Lee smirked, knowing that Derrick couldn't wake up in the mornings without a cup or two of strong black coffee. Since he had moved to America, Lee had picked up the habit himself, though he did prefer his with two sugars and a cream, as well as in a Starbuck's cup. "There might be a cold cup left in there, but if you want anything else, you'll have to brew it yourself."

Derrick grumbled in frustration as he moved around the campsite and rummaged around in Lee's pack to find the supply of coffee. "We're getting low; we'll have to stock up soon."

Lee nodded in agreement and spoke, "Yeah, I think there's a shop on the far side of the Dystopia. We'll stop in there and pick up a few more bags."

As the kettle boiled for the coffee and Derrick poured himself a cup, Lexi woke up and staggered out of her tent, hair frizzy even from the short amount of time she had spent in her tent. "Oh good, there's coffee."

Lee chuckled at the antics of his fellow travelers as he poured himself a cup of green tea. It wasn't Starbucks, but it was an acceptable replacement. Unlike Lexi and Derrick, Lee didn't need a dose of caffeine to wake up in the mornings, but he drank coffee out of habit and something about having a warm cup in his hands in the morning made facing the rest of the day somehow more palatable.

Taking a drink from his cup, Lee stood up and moved to warm up the leftovers from last night's dinner. Grabbing the frying pan Lexi had prepared the rabbit in, as well as two lengths of the tree he had cut down to rekindle the fire. Moving over to his bag, he grabbed a bag each of sausages and bacon, as well as a container of a half dozen eggs and a second, larger frying pan.

Lexi saw what he was doing and groaned. "Oh, great, more calories. There goes my waistline."

Derrick laughed. "Come on, Lex, there's nothing wrong with your waistline and a few extra calories couldn't hurt it."

Lexi glowered on hearing this. "Don't call me Lex. Don't call me babe. Don't call me anything but Lexi, is that clear?"

Derrick gulped at the sudden menacing aura Lexi was giving off and was reduced to shivering and nodding mutely.

Lee couldn't help but laugh at Lexi's anger and Derrick's apparent terror. Cracking the eggs on the edge of the pan and laying out the bacon strips on the other side of the pan, he told her, "Lexi, we're going to have another long day. We'll be walking for just about twelve hours on a pretty firm dirt surface. You weigh around 140 at a glance-"

Lexi interrupted him with a grimace, "145, actually."

Lee nodded, accepting the correction. "145 then. On a regular day, your body burns through 2,400 calories. Adding in the 2,600 calories you'd burn while walking, you would burn through roughly 5,000 calories in a day. Bacon, eggs, and sausage for breakfast with a side of camp bread could barely scratch the surface of that."

By this point, the three eggs in the pan, as well as the bacon, were finished cooking, and Lee used a fork to transfer the breakfast foods onto makeshift plates, or, as they were labeled in the supermarket, pie tins. Handing Lexi and Derrick each a plate, Lee cracked the other three eggs and put the sausage in the pan.

Five hours later, they hit the Dystopia. 200 miles to the south of Detroit, it marked the true beginning of their journey. It was a massive expanse of desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. In sheer size, Lee estimated it to be at least equal to the square mileage of Texas.

The road ended abruptly a few yards into the Dystopia. Cracked and crumbled as it was, they could barely even call it a road anymore, but it served as an unerring guide while it had lasted, and they were sorry to see it go. With seven hours left in the day, Lee decided it would be a good time for a group meeting.

They walked single file, strung out about fifteen feet apart, so when Lee stopped with his fist in the air, it took a while for the three of them to bunch up. Derrick, who was the last one to reach their position, was, as usual, the first to speak up. "What's going on, Lee?"

Lee took a moment to gather his thoughts before responding. " It's hot."

Derrick snorted in derision. "It's hot? That's what you stopped us for? We've figured that out by now, thanks."

Lee shook his head, by now accustomed to Derrick's irritable disposition. "When it's hot like this, we need additional hydration, and we're running low on water," clanking his first canteen, by now empty, against his sheathed KA-BAR.

Lexi nodded. "That's true, but I don't see what we're can do about that."

Lee closed his eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how exactly he would word what he was going to say next. "We're going to very carefully reduce our water intake, and minimize the amount we lose to perspiration."

Derrick's eyebrow rose in surprise. "How exactly are we supposed to sweat less?"

Lee was unsurprised that Derrick didn't know what he was talking about. Actually, Lee himself wouldn't have known what he was talking about if he had said it three weeks ago. He had been looking through some old medical books at his local library when he found that human body temperature could be influenced by sheer force of mental will, though considering that the very same book contained references to a cure for leprosy in birds' blood, the information might not have been wholly reliable. Still, it was worth a try. "We're going to sit down and meditate. Now while we're doing that, focus on increasing your body temperature."

With a skeptical look, Lexi and Derrick sat down, cross-legged, and closed their eyes. Several minutes later, Derrick looked up with frustration on his face. "Is this actually helping in any way whatsoever?"

Lee opened his eyes reluctantly. "I have no idea. The book I got the idea from was half hokum and the other half was unbelievable, but I figured it was worth a try. Well, if it's working, it'll be done by now, so let's go."

The group stood up and dusted the sand from their pants, resuming their line formation as they began their journey again.

Several hours later, they were still walking under the burning eye of the sun. As they crested a sand dune, though, something caught Lexi's eye.

"Hold up, guys. What's that?" She was shouting so her companions could hear her across the distance, and she raised her arm to point in the general direction of whatever it was she had seen.

Straining his eyes and shading his brow from the sun's glare, Lee could just about make out ten or twenty shorter figures around a taller one that was hunched over. From their postures, he assumed the shorter ones were attacking the tall one. "It looks like someone's being attacked over there. The question is, should we help?"

Lexi jogged up to Lee, with Derrick close on her tail. "Of course we should! We can't just stand by and let somebody get attacked like this!"

Derrick chimed in with, "Yeah, besides, if they're getting attacked in the middle of the Dystopia, they know their way around. Let's not forget, we need water and we can't find it."

Lee shook his head. "We need to find the Soulbounds right now, and eventually we need to overthrow a tyrant. To do that as efficiently as possible, we need to stay under the radar for as long as we can, and rescuing civilians will lead to talk, which will lead to someone finding out. Someone always finds out."

As they were talking, they had continued to walk, and they had gotten close enough to make out some more detail. It was clear now that the taller figure was indeed under attack and that the taller figure was an old woman. Impatiently, Lexi spoke up. "I'm not waiting for you to make a decision. I'm going to help her, like it or not."

She shouted the last bit over her shoulder as she started to sprint towards the altercation that was taking place. Derrick moved to follow after her, but Lee flung his arm out to the side to stop him, causing Derrick to look at Lee questioningly.

"I need to see how strong she is, and at some point I'll need to see how strong you are too."

"But if she gets in trouble, we won't be close enough to help her! What'll we do if-"

Lee shook his head before he answered. "Derrick, I swear to you, I will not let Lexi get hurt, but I need to see how strong she is or we can't move forward."

Derrick sighed in resignation. "All right then. I'll trust you for now, but if she gets hurt…"

Lee sighed, but in exasperation rather than resignation. "I don't know how I can make it any clearer. Get it through your thick skull. I. Will. Not. Let. Lexi. Get. Hurt." As he spoke, he punctuated his words by poking Derrick in the forehead.

Derrick shrugged angrily before pointing at the fight taking place before their eyes. "Well if you're so sure, then, you'd better haul ass."

Lee's eyes widened as he looked towards the battle that was taking place. Lexi was clearly fighting a losing battle, as she was barely able to keep the goblin-things at bay by slashing around wildly with her borrowed KA-BAR. Before Lee was able to do more than shift his feet to start running towards her, though, something unbelievable happened.

Lexi was terrified. She had dashed into the thick of the fighting with nothing in mind but to help the old lady, who had taken the opportunity to move away from the fight, and now she was surrounded by four foot tall nasty brownish green colored things that were trying to skewer her on their talons. She had drawn Lee's KA-BAR from its sheath on her waist as she was running. Dangerous, perhaps, but then again, it wasn't a pair of scissors. She had cut two of them, one across the chest and the other at the wrist, in that initial rush, while she still had the advantage of surprise, but after she had lost the initial momentum, they had surrounded her and she was more or less spinning in circles with the knife extended in a forward grip, trying to keep them away.

She was desperate for a way to stop them all, to just keep from getting stabbed by those terrifying, ragged curved talons. With a jolt of terror, she realized that she could see the remnants of what had probably been their last meals, still stuck around the edges of their nails. She was struck by a sudden burning refusal to be their next meal.

As she the thought crossed her mind, power flooded though her. Something, some primal instinct, forced that power outwards, flattening all of the goblins that were surrounding her, giving her a chance to catch her breath. As she moved closer to one edge of the now clear space around her, she realized with a start that most of her opponents were no longer breathing.

Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion overcame Lexi and she fell flat on her back, prompting a cry of alarm from both Lee and Derrick, who immediately began a mad dash to reach her. Derrick was inching ahead of Lee, though, so Lee let up as he reached the farthest goblins, the ones who had been less affected by the wave of power Lexi had put out and were beginning to find their feet again.

Lexi forgot about Lee, though, as Derrick grabbed her hand to help her stand up. With pure concern on his face, he asked her, "Are you alright?"

Lexi chuckled wearily. "I'm fine, but if whatever that was happened a minute later, I might have a few extra holes in my head that I wasn't expecting. What's Lee doing now?"

Derrick chuckled along with her for a moment, and looked over his shoulder to check on Lee. He had selected a goblin and had the bone of his forearm pressed to its windpipe, and seemed to be in the middle of making some dire threats.

Lee reached down to unstrap a portion of the goblin's piecemeal armor, a shin guard that had been fastened backwards around the goblin's right leg. He held it up before the goblin's eyes. "Solid iron, not bad. I assume it's tougher than your leg, right?"

Not daring to look away from Lee, the goblin nodded. The fact that his air supply was barely enough to keep him conscious might have contributed to the silent reply, but it was obvious nonetheless that the goblin was eager to please. Barely waiting for the answer, Lee tossed it up in the air with his right hand; then, judging its descent time, swung out his Knife and cut the shin guard cleanly in half. As the two pieces thudded to the ground, Lee spoke. "Now, why don't you start talking before I start lopping bits off? Who do you work for?"

Lee was bemused for a moment by the lack of response from the goblin, before he realized that there was still only a trickle of air entering the thing's lungs and eased off. There was still no response to be had, though, and on closer inspection, Lee realized the little creature had fainted. Lightly slapping the creature's cheeks- well, what Lee considered lightly- brought forth no response. Lee scowled in annoyance before slinging the monster over his shoulder and turning to the old lady. "Grandmother, do you have a place we could rest and wait for this creature to wake up?"

Mutely, as if still in shock, the woman nodded sharply and turned on her heel, walking off at an angle to their original direction of travel. Lee and the others hesitated for a second, surprised by this sudden development, and then followed after her.

Lee, Lexi and Derrick sat cross legged in a circle on the bare sandy ground of the old lady's brick house. The lady in question was currently in a very basic kitchen, preparing refreshments. The three companions were currently deep in discussion. "… but look, we can't stay here! We have to keep moving, and every second we stay here is a second we're not moving towards the Soulbound Weapon."

Lee sighed in exasperation. "Look Derrick, we are in a desert. We need water. This lady has a well, leading into an underground river. That is a virtually unlimited supply of water. This lady was kind enough to invite us to stay the night and fill our canteens in the morning. We will take her up on this offer, and if I have to make it an order, then I will."

Derrick leaned back with a scowl on his face and glared at Lee, but made no further comment. Lexi opened her mouth to make a comment, but just then, the lady they had saved from the goblins came out of the kitchen holding a wooden tray with four simple china cups of tea on it. She bent down and presented the tray, so Lee, Derrick and Lexi each took a cup. The woman sat down with them and shared a silent laugh with Lee at the improper etiquette of their companions, but made no comment.

Derrick noticed this and scowled. "So, old lady, do you have a name or do we have to keep calling you old lady?"

Lee sighed and placed his cup gently onto the ground in front of him. "Derrick, put your cup down."

With a puzzled frown, Derrick complied and asked, "Why?"

Smacking Derrick on the back of the head, Lee answered him. "Because it's good tea in a nice cup, and neither one should be falling out of your hands."

Ignoring Derrick's grumble, Lee turned to the old lady and asked, "Do you know of anybody trained in the old ways? The three of us will need to learn if we are to have any chance of survival."

At his words, Lexi paled and Derrick gulped audibly. They had, of course, been aware of the parameters of their journey, but this was the first time they had heard it put so plainly. Lee had no time to assess their reactions, though. The old lady had fainted as he finished the sentence, and he was the one who ended up dropping his cup as he caught her.

A few minutes later, the old lady woke up, looking shaken. Lee had been watching over her and had laid her out on the ground, and asked her if she was alright. She took a moment to gather herself, then responded.

"I'm alright, just... startled. There is a prophecy, almost a superstition, in the part of China where I came from, about the three who will be trained in the old ways-"

Shifting uncomfortably, Lee cut her off before she could tell them the prophecy. "I don't think they really need to know about that, grandmother. Can you tell us where we can find a master of the old ways?"

Blinking, the lady seemed to have been shaken from a trance. "Oh. Yes, I can. SHE has lived here for longer than I have, and I have seen her only three times in thirty years. I will take you to her in the morning."

Lee thanked her for her kindness, and she wandered off to do some chore or another before she went to turn in.

The companions talked and speculated about their soon-to-be teacher, and before long, the goblin Lee captured had woken up.

It spoke in a guttural voice that was simultaneously gruff and helpless. "Where... Where am?"

Lee sighed and walked over to the corner where he had left it. "There's no need for you to know that. Now, tell me. Who do you work for?"

Perhaps the goblin remembered Lee's demonstration in the desert, or it was terrified by the rage in his voice, hidden behind a thin veil of boredom. Either way, it spoke quickly. "Work for Big High God. Am Lieutenant Gruk. Please no killing me?"

"We'll see. If you're a lieutenant, you were in charge of that horde, right? Why were you sent to attack that old lady, and who sent you?"

"Gruk not know, Big Chief come tell Gruk, 'Gruk, now you go Big Sand and look for three people and you kill them', and Gruk take goblins with him go Big Sand."

Lee sat back for a moment, having been squatting on one side of the goblin as he questioned it. "So who found us out in the first place?" Lee wondered aloud. "Why did you attack the old woman then?"

"Gruk find old lady in Big Sand, Gruk men have no water. Gruk try find water."

Lee sighed and his shoulders fell. He stood up, grabbing the goblin by the scruff of its neck as he did, opened the door.

Lee held Gruk up to his face as he explained a few things in sharp detail, and then tossed the goblin out like a sack of trash.

Not wasting a second, the goblin scrambled away as fast as it could, leaving Lee standing in the doorway of the old lady's house, looking out at the rapidly disappearing trail of dust it had left hanging in the air. Satisfied, Lee swung back into the house and sat down again.

"It's getting late. Get some rest, I assume we'll be leaving fairly early in the morning."

With that said, Lee stretched out on the floor in the front room of the hovel and left Lexi and Derrick in an awkward silence. It worked out eventually that Lexi slept on the only sofa in the building while Derrick stretched out a few feet away from Lee.

Derrick didn't know how long he'd been staring at the ceiling. He heard something moving inside the house and he instantly tensed.

"Relax, it's just me." The soft voice came from the darkness to his right and Derrick relaxed as he identified Lexi.

"What is it?"

"..." Lexi hesitated. "There's something you should probably know."

Derrick closed his eyes, not that it made a difference in what he saw, and exhaled gently through his nose. "You told Lee you loved him. You were lying. You think I ought to know because before it placed me on uneven ground with the two of you. I miss anything?"

There was only silence in the house for a time. Eventually Lexi found her voice and managed to choke out a question. "How could you know that?"

"People underestimate their senses. I laid very still in my tent that night and concentrated on what I could hear. Also, I'm a good judge of character and I can tell you're playing with us, manipulating our feelings. Sorry, but that won't work on me."

"No, that's not-"

"Not what? Not fair? Not right? You may not even know what you're doing, but you're doing it all right. I'll go along with it for now, though."

There was nothing she could say to that, considering that for all she knew, he was right. "There's something you'll need to do, though."

Curiosity piqued, Lexi asked the inevitable question. "What's that?"

"Tell Lee the truth. As soon as possible. It hurts like hell to find out you've been lead on, so get it over with next time you get a chance. Believe me, I know."

With no reply, Lexi quietly moved back into the darkness. Derrick could hear her breathing slow as she drifted back into an uneasy sleep. The house was quiet once more, but Derrick did not sleep. He laid awake for a long time, staring at a ceiling he could not see.

"Are we there yet?"

Exchanging grins, Lexi and Derrick had been taking turns pretending to be five years old and had asked the question perhaps thirty times in as many minutes. Lee ground his teeth and ignored it, but the old lady only chuckled.

"Just a few more minutes."

Nearly an hour later, an isolated hut came into view, less than a hundred meters from the edge of a cliff. Barely visible in the distance was a covered well, just a hole in the ground with a sheet of plywood laid over it to stop things from falling in. Striding out to meet them was a tall woman with skin that had been under the sun and worn by the sand far past the point of burning and which was now a leathery brown. She wore loose, flowing clothing that looked like it might have come from the Dark Continent, once upon a time, had it still been populated as it was in the Elder World. Though she had lived in the Dystopia for many years and the lines around her eyes told the tale of the many eyes she had seen, she retained a strong figure, unbowed by age or tragedy.

The lady the trio had rescued and this enigma embraced as sisters and exchanged words in a very local dialect of Chinese, only some of which Lee could translate for Lexi and Derrick.

"Ah... They're saying something about how long it's been... The new lady just mentioned something about 'The Three' and the old lady is agreeing with her... Now she's asking the new lady if she'll train us..."

Lee lost the thread of the conversation as it became more animated, waving hands and arms punctuating machine gun bursts of their conversation.

Eventually, the new lady seemed to surrender, shaking her head and holding her hands up. She looked over to the trio, a few meters away, and called out to them in unaccented English. "From now on, you call me Teacher. Got that?"

Before any of the three could respond, she was shooing Lexi and Derrick away from Lee with a dangerous glint in her eyes. The two instinctively looked to Lee for guidance, only to find him grinning madly and cracking his knuckles.

"She has to see how strong I am, as the leader of this little group of ours, before she'll agree to train us. Go on and get back ten or twenty meters, guys. This is gonna be the most fun I've had in a long time."

Grinning and tense, ready for action, Lee stared at the woman who might become their teacher, standing five meters away, looking cool and composed as she returned his gaze.

Without a word or any indication which was visible to any of their three spectators, Lee charged at her at top speed. Not bothering to shout the name of his technique since finding out he didn't have to, he lunged at her with his Knife in his right hand and three fingers of his left hand extended in his Claw.

As he had expected, their Teacher was too experienced to be taken down by such a straightforward attack from somebody she far outclassed in power, speed and experience. She dodged easily to her left, only for Lee to plant his hands in the sandy ground and spin his legs in a low sweep.

She jumped over his legs as easily as she might jump rope, though a faint glimmer of approval appeared in her eyes for a fleeting moment. Lee wasn't done yet, though; there was no way that would be enough for her to teach him.

After she had reached the peak of her leap, Lee sprang up behind her and met her nearly a meter and a half in the air. From slightly above her, he had the advantage when attacking, and he swung his leg toward her head with all the strength he could muster.

Once again, she blocked it easily, almost contemptuously, but Lee had been expecting it and was readier this time. She had grabbed his leg, giving him enough leverage to wrap the other one around her and spin so she was facing directly towards the ground.

In the air, the human body will fall through a meter and a half in less than a second. All of their airborne battle had borne itself out in just half of that time, leaving ample time for the experienced warrior to twist herself out of Lee's grasp and land on her feet while Lee himself executed a spectacular belly flop which might have won a ribbon at a county fair, had there been a pool beneath him. Or a county fair going on at the time.

Getting back up, Lee reactivated his Knife and was panting heavily. Experienced as he was in combat, he was unused to this level of fighting, and it had taken its toll on his energy reserves.

The woman simply looked at him before she closed her eyes and turned around, back facing him. "We're done here."

With a primal yell of anger, Lee thrust himself off his left knee, which he had been kneeling on, and charged her.

"DON'T YOU EVER COUNT ME OUT!"

From beside Lexi came a surprising rush of motion as Derrick charged, hitting his top speed and overtaking Lee in less than two seconds. Pivoting on his right foot, he delivered a ferocious roundhouse kick to Lee's chest with his left. He spat into the sand.

"You're embarrassing. Nobody attacks an enemy whose back is turned."

Turning to face Lexi, he seemed perplexed by her expression of total shock.

"What, you thought he was the only person here who'd spent time on the streets?"

"I could have handled it, you know."

The sentence, spoken with an air of total self-confidence, came from their mysterious new teacher.

"Of course I know that, Teacher. My method of dealing with it was less likely to maim him, though, and whether I like him or not he is necessary to our cause."

Smiling lopsidedly, she knelt down to check Lee's breathing and decided he was fine. "You've cracked a couple of his ribs, and he'll be unconscious for an hour and a half at the least."

Derrick could only grin sheepishly and scratch the back of his head.

Shaking her head, the Teacher started walking towards her hut. "Come on, there's food and drink. We'll wait for him to wake up."

** A Few Minutes Later**

Derrick and Lexi sat cross-legged on the ground, watching their Teacher tip some sort of liquid in a flask down Lee's throat. Perplexed, it was Derrick who spoke up. "What's that?"

The Teacher looked up distractedly. "Hm? Oh, this. It's nectar, drink of the Old Gods."

Understandably, Derrick was still confused. "So why are you tipping it down his throat?"

"It heals most injuries, as long as a limb doesn't get lopped off or something. The problem is, since it's made for immortals, if mortals drink too much they burn."

"As in blistering?"

"As in third degree acid burns all over your body, actually."

Derrick could only nod.

"He should wake up in half an hour or so. In the meantime, there's somebody the two of you should meet. I'll introduce this fool later." The Teacher poked at Lee's ribs with her right foot.

The mysterious woman strode off deeper into her hut, into one of the rooms at the back of the building. She returned a few minutes later, pushing an emaciated man in a wheelchair before her.

In a thin, weak voice, the man spoke to them. "Welcome to this place, children. It is my home, and this is my last student, Thalia, final daughter of the old god Zeus."

Lee and Derrick were struck instantly by the weight of the history the man's proclamation carried, while Lexi had to work her way through it. When the realization came to her, her eyes widened and her entire body stiffened.

Lexi was the first to regain her voice, and the only one to have reached a conclusion as to the identity of this mysterious wheelchair-bound man. "But if a child of an old god is your student, then that means…"

"Yes," the man agreed, bracing his hands on the armrests of his chair and pushing upwards, as though trying to lift himself of the seat. After a momentary struggle, he rose to a far greater height than he had reached before, and also moved forward. As the blanket which had rested on his lap fell to the ground, the lower body of a pure white horse revealed itself. After extracting himself from the wheelchair, the man stood well over two meters high and three long.

Suddenly, he spoke in a much more commanding voice, one that bore the weight of millennia long past and the countless losses that accompanied such age. "I am the Maker of Heroes, the Greatest Teacher, and the Immortal Centaur. They are my titles in this age, but once, many years ago, I was known simply as Chiron."

**A/N: We finally return to familiar territory with this chapter! I actually wrote the last few hundred words of this chapter last night instead of doing my homework, and it seemed like a good place to stop (as well as a good reason to not be doing my homework), so I left it there for now. Again, I'm really sorry about the time between updates, it's just that school takes up so much of my time and I usually don't feel like writing. Recently I've been picturing some scenes from this story in my head, though, so look forward to more updates! Happy holidays, whatever you celebrate!**

**Demento, out.**


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